Message from the Night Vigilante: “The peace of mind and tranquility of your esteemed family is worth much more than any modest monthly fee.” (”Smoking Marlboros can cause pickled babies in a jar.”)
Maciel rings our bell insistently at 10:30 in the evening.
He hands my wife an official-looking invoice for private night-watchman services at R$35 a month, a document that cites “Decree-Law No. 50301 of 29/68″ [sic] as proof that the arrangement is all nice and legal.
It isn’t all nice and legal.
But it is one of those gray areas of life in Sambodia that you sometimes find yourself perplexed by.
My worry is that we are going to wake up one day and find that these fellows are fronting for cops supplementing their salaries with pizzo protection schemes. It is already noticeable that the plainclothesmen with the ankle holsters seem to have “all the beer you can drink for free” arrangements with a local boteco, for example. This observed at first hand.
Luís Carlos de Almeida Hora of Jus Navigandi — a useful database of legal analysis by law students and scholars (sort of an online open-source Harvard Law Review) — commented on the situation in 2002.
Private security companies and individual service providers are proliferating in the area of public safety. It is not uncommon to see individuals, most of them unemployed denizens of this era of globalization, offering themselves as ‘night watchmen’ to keep watch on the streets on the pretext of preventing such crimes as vandalism, burglarly or robbery. Nor is it uncommon for some ragged individual to show up on foot, on a bicycle, or even on a moto, whistling in the street and then, some time later, visiting residents and saying that he is the watchman of that block, asking for contributions so that he can continue providing security to the area. Some even present ID badges, saying their activity is supported by the law and that oversight is provided by the state public security secretary, through the state judicial police, where they are registered in some way as a a “watchman.’
If you are citizen of the state of São Paulo, you should know that under existing law, this activity is completely unregulated by the state public security department. The “watchmen” of São Paulo have never been regulated by specific legislation, only by a [dictatorship-era] executive decree.
State Decree 50,301 of September 2, 1968 (as amended by Decrees 51,422/69 e 37/72) regulated Article 32 of the Organic Legislation of the Police, Law 10,123 of May 27, 1968, which has been superceded by the current police law (Lei Complementar Estadual nº 207 of January 5, 1979).
The Decree was handed down to provide rules for the organization and functioning of Municipal Guards and Night Watchmen, as well as for private watchmen and armored car guards. Currently, the Municipal Guard have constitutional status, the Night Watchman no longer exist and the profession of armored car guard is governed by federal law (Law 7,102/83, as amended by Law 8,863/94 and 9,017/95). That leaves us with the legal status of private night watchmen.
The decree did not define precisely what private watchman are, saying only that their services may be rendered by private individuals or firms (Article 4.). Article 6 made police precinct commanders responsible for exercising control over these services, and Articlle. 10 set forth the conditions for providing private watchman services, such as a minimum age of 18 years. Section 1 of Article 10 and Article 12 authorized the use of firearms, provided the watchman had previous training in its use (Article 9).
Lei Complementar Estadual 207/79, which revoked the previous police law, provides in Article 8 that “muncipal guards, night watchmen and private security services, authorized by law, are subject to the guidance, control and oversight of the state department of public security, in the form of specific regulation”.
Outside the State Decrees, there have never been any specific regulations for the activity of private watchmen. As a result, given that Law 207/79 requires legal authorization for this activity, the lack of such a law means these services lack legitimacy. State oversight had already been legally defined (in Decrees 50.301/68 and the others cited above ), but no law was passed disciplining the activity. Decree Laws 1,034 of 1969 and 1.103 of 1970 (expressly revoked by law 7,102/83) spoke to the general issue, but contained no specific provisions on the profession in question. They regulated only the profession of bank security guard.
And so on, in an exhaustive demonstration that the whole thing is utterly bogus.
The problem is the ambiguity of the situation: The promise that your goods and security will be safe so long as you pay begs the question of whom they will be safe from. The same person you are paying off?
The federal police have taken notable steps recently in training and oversight of private security under a new federal law, particularly in Rio — where “private security” is often a euphemism for vicious, mobbed-up, “the cops are criminals” parapolitical militias.
Filed under: Brazil, Legal Affairs, Life in Sambodia, Organized Crime
